CBI quick to raid opposition, ignores allegations against BJP, alleges AAP

The Aam Aadmi Party on Wednesday blamed the CBI is “quick to raid” offices of Opposition parties, but “turns a blind eye” when it comes to allegations against the Centre or BJP-ruled states.

The allegations come in the backdrop of the central agency “raiding” Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia premises and quizzing Health Minister Satyendar Jain’s wife in two separate cases.

The party referred to a submission by the CBI on May 3 wherein the agency had told the Delhi High Court it didn’t register graft cases against senior AIIMS officials for alleged irregularities in procurements during 2012-14 as it “found no criminality” on their part.

The allegations of irregularities in procurements were levelled by NGO Centre for Public Interest Litigation.

The NGO had claimed the CBI and the then AIIMS Chief Vigilance Officer (CVO), Sanjiv Chaturvedi, had found prima facie instances of corruption by some of senior functionaries of the premier health institution.

Despite all these, no steps were being taken to register a regular case, the NGO had complained.

Addressing a press conference today, AAP leader Ashutosh said, incumbent Health Minister J P Nadda, while he was not a minister, had written to the then Health Minister Harsh Vardhan to “divest” Chaturvedi of the charge of AIIMS CVO.

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Nadda later succeeded Vardhan in the health ministry.

“It is submitted that CBI...has found no criminality on the part of officials or officers of AIIMS and hence no FIR was registered,” the CBI had told the court.

The CBI’s stand was similar to that of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, which, in its reply to the application of the NGO, has said the allegations “could not be established”.

“While the CBI springs into action when it comes to the AAP and other Opposition parties, it conveniently turns a blind eye on irregularities when it comes to the BJP,” AAP’s Delhi unit’s chief spokesperson Saurabh Bharadwaj alleged.